Online Learning
How to evaluate an online course before you pay for it
The number of online courses has grown faster than the language for evaluating them. A working framework for picking ones that deliver and avoiding ones that don't.
Online Learning
Private student loans: what students should know before signing
Private student loans differ from federal loans in ways that compound over a 20-year repayment. The structural picture, the cosigner trap, and when private loans actually make sense.
Conferences worth your district’s PD budget for 2026-2027
Some education conferences continue to earn their costs. Others have grown thin. An honest read for districts allocating professional development budgets.
Topics
EdTech & Classroom Tools
Honest reviews of the apps, platforms, AI tools, and devices teachers are asked to adopt. We assess what genuinely helps students think, what just keeps them busy, and what's heavily marketed without earning its place.
“Free alternatives to expensive grade-book and assessment software”
27 posts
Digital Literacy & Media
Reading, writing, and thinking in a media environment that wasn't built in students' interest. We cover information literacy, source evaluation, attention, and what it means to be a careful reader and a credible writer online.
“Teaching media literacy in an algorithm-shaped attention environment”
25 posts
Schools & Policy
What happens to teaching when policy meets practice. We write about school systems, assessment regimes, district decisions, and the quiet politics that shape what's possible inside the classroom.
“Chronic absenteeism, three years on: what the data actually shows”
21 posts
Teaching & Pedagogy
How real classrooms work, lesson by lesson. We write about instructional design, classroom practice, and the small craft decisions that shape what students actually learn, separating durable pedagogy from passing fashion.
“Differentiation that doesn’t double your prep time”
19 posts
Professional Development
Notes on how teachers actually grow. We cover conferences worth attending, PD that doesn't waste a Saturday, and the case for treating educators as career-long learners rather than topped-off skill sets.
“Conferences worth your district’s PD budget for 2026-2027”
17 posts
Online Learning
MOOCs, course platforms, bootcamps, and the rest of the open-web learning economy. We cover where online courses deliver, where they don't, and how adults are actually picking up new skills outside traditional classrooms.
“How to evaluate an online course before you pay for it”
12 posts
Recent writing
EdTech & Classroom Tools
Filter Fun
We’ve been running into school Internet filters more than usual lately, and the problem seems to be getting worse instead of better. When teachers and even administrators can’t reach basic tools like Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, or Wikipedia, it not only leaves students unprepared for the unfiltered world they actually live in, it also undermines the professionalism of educators. The only way students and teachers will ever really master the Web is by being allowed to use it.
Digital Literacy & Media
Kids Prefer Reading Online…
So the unending debate over whether or not reading on the Internet is “really” reading gets played out once again in this New York…
EdTech & Classroom Tools
What We Hate About Twitter
We’ve liked Twitter since we first started playing with it last year, but there are some things that are really starting to annoy us about these 140-character “conversations” that we’re carrying on there, server issues notwithstanding.
Professional Development
I’ll Be in the Hallway
Reflecting on unconference-style gatherings at BloggerCon and EduBloggerCon, and questioning whether we’re really moving beyond tools and vendors toward deeper conversations about how learning, networks, teaching, and schools are changing.
Digital Literacy & Media
Blogging Ethics
Reflections on Jeff Jarvis’s take on blogging ethics, the power of linking and quoting, and how these practices shape journalism, teaching, and expectations for non-fiction writing.
Digital Literacy & Media
Required Reading on Reading
Nick Carr has a highly thought provoking piece in the Atlantic this month titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that raises some challenging questions…
Digital Literacy & Media
What, No Footprint?
We’ve been wondering how long it will take until having a positive digital footprint becomes an expectation rather than an exception—and we’re already reserving domains so our kids can shape the story people find when they’re Googled.
Digital Literacy & Media
Not “The Dumbest Generation”
Reflecting on Mark Bauerline’s book The Dumbest Generation, we argue that today’s young people are not “dumb” because of their technology use; rather, it is adults’ responsibility to model and guide meaningful learning with digital tools.